9° 



TJie Lescent of Alan. 



Paet I. 



organs, which with long- continued practice might have been 

 used for speech, although not thus used, is paralleled by the 

 case of many birds which possess organs fitted for singing., 

 though they never sing. Thus, the nightingale and crow have 

 vocal organs similarly constructed, these being used by the 

 former for diversified song, and by the latter only for croaking. 08 

 If it be asked why apes have not had their intellects developed 

 to the same degree as that of man, general causes only can be 

 assigned in answer, and it is unreasonable to expect anything 

 more definite, considering our ignorance with respect to the 

 successive stages of development through which each creature 

 has passed. 



The formation of different languages and of distinct species, 

 and the proofs that both have been developed through a gradual 

 process, are curiously parallel. 67 But we can trace the formation 

 of many words further back than that of species, for we can 

 perceive how they actually arose from the imitation of various 

 sounds. We find in distinct languages striking homologies due 

 to community of descent, and analogies due to a similar process 

 of formation. The manner in which certain letters or sounds 

 change when others change is very like correlated growth. We 

 have in both cases the reduplication of parts, the effects of long- 

 continued use, and so forth. The frequent presence of rudi- 

 ments, both in languages and in species, is still more remarkable. 

 The letter m in the word am, means I ; so that in the expres- 

 sion I am, a superfluous and useless rudiment has been retained. 

 In the spelling also of words, letters often remain as the rudi- 

 ments of ancient forms of pronunciation. Languages, like 

 organic beings, can be classed in groups under groups ; and they 

 can be classed either naturally according to descent, or arti- 

 ficially by other characters. Dominant languages and dialects 

 spread widely, and lead to the gradual extinction of other 

 tongues. A language, like a species, when once extinct, never, 

 as Sir C. Lyell remarks, reappears. The same language never 

 has two birth-places. Distinct languages may be crossed or 

 blended together. 68 We see variability in every tongue, and new 



66 Macgillivray, ' Hist, of British 

 Birds,' vol. ii. 1839, p. 29. An 

 excellent observer, Mr. Blaekwall, 

 remarks that the magpie learns to 

 pronounce single words, and even 

 short sentences, more readily than 

 almost any other British bird ; yet, 

 as he adds, after long and closely 

 investigating its habits, he has 

 never known it, in a state of mature, 



display any unusual capacity for 

 imitation. ' Researches in Zoology,' 

 18.34, p. 15S. 



67 See the very interesting pa- 

 rallelism between the development 

 of species and languages, given by 

 Sir C. Lyell in 'The Geolog. Evi- 

 dences of the Antiquity of Man,' 

 1863, chap, xxiii. 



e8 See remarks to this effect h* 



